3.++Epic+Stories+On+a+Grand+Scale

by David Adams Leeming
** Whereas the old religious stories, or myths, tended to emphasize the deeds of the gods, epic poems emphasize the deeds of a special kind of human being related to the gods: From Gilgamesh to Achilles, epic heroes carry the images and supernatural energies of the gods within themselves. Yet these heroic figures are also, like all of us, subject to the joys and hardships of the human condition. **
 * “I teach the kings the history of their ancestors,” declares the narrator of the African epic //Sundiata// **//, //** “for the world is old, but the future springs from the past.” These same words could be applied to epics from all times and places, for an epic, a long narrative poem about the exploits of a national hero, is a bridge from the past to the future. Epics carry a culture’s history, values, myths, legends, and traditions from one generation to the next. **
 * he Epic Hero: An External Archetype **
 * No matter what the differences may be between epics of different cultures or times, the epic hero remains constant. It is as if each hero wears the particular costume of his or her cultures but is really the same figure underneath, facing the same kinds of challenges and ordeals. While the hero of the Mesopotamian Gilgamesh epic, the Greek Iliad, and the Angelo-Saxon Beowulf all clearly reflects the particular values of their cultures, we also find in them a single figure__ the hero archetype, or model_ who is somehow familiar to people of all places and all times. The epic hero represents the universal human quest for knowledge and understanding. **
 * The Hero’s Journey **
 * The epic hero’s adventures always involve trials and temptations. As in our own journey through life, there are always obstacles that stand in the way of the hero’s goals. Like Gilgamesh, we all have our hopeless desires: like Achilles, we all have our potentially fatal weaknesses; like Beowulf, we must fight our Grendals and dragons_ out inner and outer demons. It is the epic hero’s belief in himself (traditionally, epic heroes have always been male) and his own powers that make his success possible in spite of obstacles. **
 * The Epic Lives On **
 * Today, the epic hero and his quest are alive and well in our own popular culture. In movies, comic books, fantasy novels, television programs, and video games, we meet an endless procession of larger-than-life, sometimes superhuman heroes, both male and female, whom we recognize as descendants of the ancient world’s epic heroes. The archetype endures because it is, quite simply, universal and always relevant, a symbol of some of the most deeply held values of humankind. The story of the epic hero addresses every aspect of the human experience _ its joys, its agonies, its accomplishments, its failures, its sense of its relation to the mysteries of the universe. In Gilgamesh’s journey from arrogant kingship to humbled returning pilgrim, in Achilles’ passage from pouting adolescent to experienced warrior humbled by the ancient Priam, and in Beowulf’s movement from self-seeking adventure to heroic but humble death, we discover a dramatic record of the personal and collective human quest. **